What causes this problem with a Radeon 8500LE?

[gtd2000]

Radeon 8500 Screenshot

My system specs are as follows:

Xp1700+
ECS K7S5A
512MB Crucial DDR
Sapphire Radeon 8500LE Catalyst 3.1
Win ME
SB Live 5.1

 

[BFG10K]

Is it just one game or do all of your games have problems?

 

[gtd2000]

That was a screenshot of Quake 2 - Sof 2 is very similar - OpenGL games are all totally shot basically

Deus Ex plays for around 10-15mins perfectly then the rendering starts to become rainbow coloured.....and the audio also starts to pop for some reason and all the weapons make the wrong noises. - weird stuff - but I have heard of another guy with a similar problem but his games lock up.

The thing is the card works perfectly in other systems - as does a Radeon 9000 Pro in the ECS, as well as a GF2 Pro and a GF 2 GTS-V.

I'm totally baffled by it

Never seen this kind of problem ever - then again it is my first time away from Nvidia since 1998...

 

[Tab]

Windows Me.

 

[blindtothagame]

i have the 8500le mines works well
with everything i've thrown @ it.........

 

[dbal]

I 'd vote for the ECS....

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: Tabb
Windows Me.

Have you ever used Windows ME?
Presumably not I've never had any problem with Win ME at all - even although I avoided it for perhaps one year due to the bad feedback that I kept "hearing" about.
It was only after the computer tech guy at work asked if I had tried it and recommended it that I used it.
I even reverted from Win XP to ME.
The Win 9x OS that everybody raves about - Win 98SE - was the worst OS from M$ that I ever used...like most things (and this problem that I currently have) YMMV - big time

The 8500LE card works fine in my KT7A - also my GF2 Pro and GTS-V cards work fine in the ECS K7S5A board.

I installed a Radeon 9000 Pro into the K7S5A also and it worked perfectly - the problem that I have is purely when using the Sapphire Radeon 8500LE AND the ECS K7S5A TOGETHER.

Separately there are no problems at all.

 

[HappyNic]

what kind of bios was use for your K7s5a?
Is fastwrite on or off?
Did you overclock your system, if so what FSB?
Did you remove ALL nivida drivers and stuff from from you OS, before install the ATI driver.
Try removing you sound blaster card, and run your games without it.

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: HappyNic
what kind of bios was use for your K7s5a?
Is fastwrite on or off?
Did you overclock your system, if so what FSB?
Did you remove ALL nivida drivers and stuff from from you OS, before install the ATI driver.
Try removing you sound blaster card, and run your games without it.

I've tried BIOS files with and without fast writes
Also enabled/disable fast writes via ATi Control Panel and x1, x2 , x4 etc...

FSB for system is at 133/133

Formatted HD and started again fresh - same problem

Now - here is the interesting thing - I thought about the SB Live thing too - but that is the only thing I've not tried so far. I better check this tonight that is after I re-flash the card as I had a bad flash last night going from 8500--->9100 and hence it is no longer working....
Need to pick up a PCI VGA card on my way home to do this.

As mentioned before though - a Radeon 9000 Pro worked perfectly in the same system - as does my GF2 cards...hence my attempt to flash to a 9000 series BIOS

 

[aircooled]

I doubt it's the ECS or the 8500LE. Most likely a driver issue or ME issue. I have built 3 8500LE on winXP/K7S5A for family members, one of which my kid games heavily on has never seen that issue, plus I have 5 at work with win2k on them, even though they are work computers I had to burn them in with some 3D gaming

As much as you like ME, it is an "orphaned" OS. Plus modern driver developement is now geared around XP. I'm not ruling out a bad peice of hardware either, but going by my own experience with the identical hardware you describe I have never seen the video issue you describe using 2000/XP.

Just a thought.

 

[gtd2000]

As much as you like ME, it is an "orphaned" OS. Plus modern driver developement is now geared around XP. I'm not ruling out a bad peice of hardware either, but going by my own experience with the identical hardware you describe I have never seen the video issue you describe using 2000/XP.

Not sure why ME would be to blame though as my GF cards work fine in the very same system - as well as the Radeon 9000 Pro.

I'm not saying that it IS NOT to blame but all of the Win ME system that I have built have been extremely troublefree - with the exception of this particular combination.

In this instance the Radeon 8500LE installs perfectly - and I can run around in 2D all day long without any trouble at all.
The only time I get an issue is when I go into 3D applications. Specifically games.

All dxdiag tests pass as well....

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: gtd 2000

As much as you like ME, it is an "orphaned" OS. Plus modern driver developement is now geared around XP. I'm not ruling out a bad peice of hardware either, but going by my own experience with the identical hardware you describe I have never seen the video issue you describe using 2000/XP.

Not sure why ME would be to blame though as my GF cards work fine in the very same system - as well as the Radeon 9000 Pro.

I'm not saying that it IS NOT to blame but all of the Win ME system that I have built have been extremely troublefree - with the exception of this particular combination.

In this instance the Radeon 8500LE installs perfectly - and I can run around in 2D all day long without any trouble at all.
The only time I get an issue is when I go into 3D applications. Specifically games.

All dxdiag tests pass as well....

Unfortunatley, the only way to truly troubleshoot the issue and rule out the OS is to install XP/2000 on the same hardware and see if you have the same results, maybe swap hard drives and give it a shot so as not to wreck your existing install. You've already put a different vid card in that worked well, have you tried putting your card in someone else's machine to see if you can duplicate the results?

Also, you mentioned that you flashed the 8500LE BIOS, did you modify the original BIOS's mem speed and re-flash, or did you download a new BIOS and flash? There are several BIOS variations for the 8500 and the best results come from taking your original BIOS and modifying the mem clock then re-flashing using your original modified BIOS. Hopefully you backed up the original BIOS that came with the card. Try going back to that at default clock speed and see what happens.

Besides that, you may want to post something over at Rage3D.com forums. If it's a known issue ,you will surely find someone over there who has had the same problem.

Good luck. Let us know what happens.

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: aircooled
[Q
Unfortunatley, the only way to truly troubleshoot the issue and rule out the OS is to install XP/2000 on the same hardware and see if you have the same results, maybe swap hard drives and give it a shot so as not to wreck your existing install. You've already put a different vid card in that worked well, have you tried putting your card in someone else's machine to see if you can duplicate the results?

Also, you mentioned that you flashed the 8500LE BIOS, did you modify the original BIOS's mem speed and re-flash, or did you download a new BIOS and flash? There are several BIOS variations for the 8500 and the best results come from taking your original BIOS and modifying the mem clock then re-flashing using your original modified BIOS. Hopefully you backed up the original BIOS that came with the card. Try going back to that at default clock speed and see what happens.

Besides that, you may want to post something over at Rage3D.com forums. If it's a known issue ,you will surely find someone over there who has had the same problem.

Good luck. Let us know what happens.

I can do that - still have my original installation with the XP OS on my other 40GB drive
Yes the Radeon works fine in both of my other PC's at home.

I attempted to flash 8500 to 9100 - on the logic that I installed a Radeon 9000Pro into the ECS K7S5A without any trouble at all Games ran fine and no errors whatsoever.

I've already posted over at rage3d too - it has been a good sorce of info for me to re-flash the card etc - which I will be attempting tonight
There are probably two other guys with similar problems over there.

I used the German instructions for flashing the BIOS - and as you may guess - I fu^&d it up somewhat

Hopefully I can get the card up and running tonight though

 

[NEVERwinter]

only for your question... I put my Sapphire 8500LE (Cat 3.1) into my bro's system (Tbird 1.33, K7S5A, Win98SE) and installed Q3A... It works fine.... so maybe it's caused by WinME (or SB Live! ???)
btw... does your D3D games works fine?

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: NEVERwinter
only for your question... I put my Sapphire 8500LE (Cat 3.1) into my bro's system (Tbird 1.33, K7S5A, Win98SE) and installed Q3A... It works fine.... so maybe it's caused by WinME (or SB Live! ???)
btw... does your D3D games works fine?

Per your D3D question

Deus Ex plays for around 10-15mins perfectly then the rendering starts to become rainbow coloured.....and the audio also starts to pop for some reason and all the weapons make the wrong noises. - weird.

I have a feeling the SBlive may have something to do with this....never had a SBLive conflict before - but I have "read" about them..

 

[gtd2000]

Well it is not the SBLive to blame.
I updated the AGP card BIOS to Radeon 9100 - same rendering problems

Tried my XP boot partition but no-go...will need to try it fresh.

In short there is something wrong with this particular combo - and fvck knows what it is!!!

 

[BFG10K]

Do you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for your system?
Any overclocks?
Any background programs running (especially 3D tweakers)?

In short there is something wrong with this particular combo - and fvck knows what it is!!!

I'm guessing it's the motherboard at fault. That's one of the many that I'd class as extremely poor quality, both the chipset and the manufacturer.

 

[HappyNic]

oh, is your 8500le build by ATI or Power by ATI?
I notice some problems on some of the Power by ATI cards,, mostly the 9000s.

What clock is you 8500le running at 250/250?

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Do you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for your system?
Any overclocks?
Any background programs running (especially 3D tweakers)?

In short there is something wrong with this particular combo - and fvck knows what it is!!!

I'm guessing it's the motherboard at fault. That's one of the many that I'd class as extremely poor quality, both the chipset and the manufacturer.

Nope - system is all at standard speeds, CPU. GPU etc.

Have a tweaker installed from Rage 3D - have tried running the card without it and it is still the same.

The card works fine in other systems - other cards work fine in this board...hence the confusion

Have the latest BIOS for the ECS board with fast writes disabled - actually I have tried about 3 or 4 flavours of BIOS - all the same result.

Have now upgraded the Radeon BIOS to a 9100 - still the same problem.

The issue is only with the ECS/Radeon combo - put a different card into the ECS and it runs perfectly - put the Radeon into another PC and it runs perfectly.

The Radeon also performs perfectly in 2D operations - it is only 3D that causes problems.

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: HappyNic
oh, is your 8500le build by ATI or Power by ATI?
I notice some problems on some of the Power by ATI cards,, mostly the 9000s.

What clock is you 8500le running at 250/250?

My card is a Sapphire Radeon (badged as a 64MB) but actually a 128MB with -4ns Hyundai RAM clocked at 250/200 standard.
The card will run at 3XX/250 in my other systems without any artifacts.
If I totally underclock the card the same rendering problems you can see in the link of my first post here is still displayed.

I installed a BBA Radeon 9000Pro into my ECS and it works perfecty - I only did this as a test and returned the card to Best Buy though.

 

[BFG10K]

OK, I guess the next thing to try is a minimal boot in case some piece of hardware in your system is conflicting with the Radeon.

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
OK, I guess the next thing to try is a minimal boot in case some piece of hardware in your system is conflicting with the Radeon.

What would you recommend disabling for a minimal boot?

Another thing that confuses me is that it is only part of the screen that is affected by this problem.

 

[BFG10K]

What would you recommend disabling for a minimal boot?

Everything you don't need.

Just have the CPU, one stick of RAM, the video card and your primary HD. Disconnect everything else.

 

[HappyNic]

I think it's time to RMA you problem away

 

[gtd2000]

Well I have an update - I played Red Faction tonight and there was no sign of deterioration of the rendering (D3D game) which is unlike Deus Ex that messes up after 10-15mins.

The screenshot per the first message is still the same for OpenGL games though.

HappyNic
The problem is that their is nothing wrong with the card in any other system - so I asume even if they exchange it will be the same
The motherboard also runs fine with a different graphics card.

It is only when I have the ECS/8500 combo that I get this problem